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Thundering hooves, clicking cameras

By Maggie Plummer

MOIESE - The recent calm, clear, balmy weather held for this year's roundup at the National Bison Range here.

In other words, there was plenty of dramatic dust as hundreds of thundering bison hooves pounded and shook the ground during the event, which always takes place the first Monday and Tuesday of October.

Late Monday morning, after the intrepid bison wranglers rode their horses up the hill to cut another group of bison from the herd and chase them full speed into the corrals below, whooping and hollering all the way down, some in the crowd of roundup observers broke into spontaneous, enthusiastic applause for a job well done.

Tribal Councilman Ron Trahan was front and center at the hydraulic squeeze chute Monday, appearing to enjoy his key position of securing adult bisons' heads so that the biologists and veterinarians could do various health-monitoring jobs.

This was the second time tribal and federal employees have worked side by side for the annual roundup, as called for by an Annual Funding Agreement between the Tribes and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

During the event, bison are corralled, weighed, branded, tested and sorted. The NBR bison have not been vaccinated during the last seven years, according to officials.

Because 89 percent of the range's mature bison cows have calves, it's important to reduce the herd each year as a way to protect the grassland forage the animals depend on for food.

As all of the adult bison are weighed, managers choose which animals will go to donations, buyers, research or general health tests. The animals not selected are let go to make their way back onto the Range. The others are sent through the squeeze chute, which is located on their way to the holding pens.

One unusual aspect of this year's roundup is that only 34 of the range's bison were removed, compared to an average of between 50 and 95. All 34 of those surplus bison were donated to two other National Wildlife Refuges - Neil Smith NWR in Iowa and SullyÍs Hill National Game Preserve in North Dakota - rather than being donated to various Tribes or research programs, or sold to private individuals.

The animals removed from the herd are randomly selected in various age/gender classes.

Range workers were testing equipment designed to read the animals' microchips while the bison were on the scale. What that means, they say, is that only select bison will be sent to the chute, and that will reduce the amount of bison handling.

Blood was at times drawn for health or genetic testing, and officials are also testing new equipment that will print a blood tube label for the animal in the chute.

Bison headed for out-of-state locations usually need to have a health certification.

For the calves, the annual roundup presents a different routine: they go through their own scale and squeeze chute, are branded, get a microchip behind the ear with a unique ID number, have a tail hair pulled for genetics testing, and have blood taken for DNA, genetic work and disease testing.

There is currently considerable interest in testing genetics on all public bison herds, with the idea of helping future management teams decide if herds need new bloodlines, and which herds would be best for cross breeding.

"There is also a push to remove any bison with cattle genes," an NBR fact sheet states. "At the turn of the century, as a concerned public started protecting and promoting the increase of bison herds, they could only use visual means to determine if the animals were pure bison. Many public herds, including the Bison Range, started from private herds and have supplemented their herds over the years to maintain health.

"Based on the results of a recently completed federal bison genetics project, the Bison Range's bison have been found to have a very high level of genetic diversity...these bison also have a very low level of cattle gene introgression. The Bison Range has had only 12 animals brought into the herd since its initial establishment 98 years ago. The Range is no longer bringing bison in from outside sources in order to preserve the high genetic quality and low levels of cattle gene introgression."

The annual roundup is a special chance for people to watch the routine work of the Range. While roundup visitors are welcome, and come by the thousands from all over, the main purpose of the event is to remove surplus animals and monitor the herd's health.

The 18,766-acre Moiese range is home to between 350 and 370 of the huge, powerful animals. Among the range's goals are to conserve bison as a species, conserve unique bison genetics, and provide public opportunity to view bison in a natural prairie grass setting.

The National Bison Range in Moiese was established in 1908 to help build up bison herds that at the time were on the very brink of extinction.

Between 1840 and 1880, bison were killed by the millions in a shameful, greedy slaughter. The magnificent native bison - on which many native people depended for food, clothing and shelter - were carelessly shot, stripped of their hides, often had only their tongues taken, and were left lying on the prairie, the valuable meat rotting and wasted.

By 1900 the number of wild American bison, which originally ranged from Canada's Great Slave Lake to Mexico and from Nevada and Oregon to Tennessee and Pennsylvania - in gigantic herds of perhaps 50 million animals - was reduced to an incredibly small count: less than 100 wild bison were left.

The NBR herd originated with five orphaned bison calves brought from east of the Continental Divide to the Mission Valley in 1873 by Walking Coyote, a Pend d'Oreille. He eventually sold them to ranchers Michael Pablo and Charles Allard, who over many years kept building the herd.

Some of the Pablo-Allard herd wound up being sold to Charles Conrad of Kalispell, and those animals are said to be the ancestors of today's Bison Range stock.

The thousands of roundup visitors crowding the catwalk on Monday and Tuesday seemed awed by the chance to catch a glimpse of those long ago animals' descendants.

School buses brimming with children and caravans of cars streamed to the roundup corrals. People came from all over western Montana and well beyond to enjoy a gorgeous, sunny day of watching bison, photographing roundup action, and eating Charlo PTA burgers and chili at the picnic tables.

There are now approximately 25,000 bison in various public herds around the country.

In addition to those animals, more than 300,000 bison are on private ranches these days.